Anyone nostalgic for the Breton musician Yann Tiersen’s accordion days, which produced the music that made the soundtrack to the movie Amélie, would have been disappointed by his latest album Skyline.

Gone are the Francophone quirks in place of an Anglo-Saxon polish to matches Tiersen's decision to compose wholly in English. Some will point to British producer Ken Thomas’s influence, who Tiersen first tapped-up for Skyline’s predecessor Dust Lane. They may say Thomas is a background meddler, who has conspired to straighten out the sound for Tiersen’s large audience outside France.

For true artists, though, nostalgia is the enemy. And Tiersen, a classically-trained musician whose career has involved forays of self-discovery on the isolated Île d’Ouessant or full-blown collaborations dedicated to the spirit of collusion, has the pioneering spirit.

On the road to share the best of his seventh studio album, he was squashed between enough electronic equipment to keep Which? magazine’s reviews editor occupied for months. Amid the keys and synths, effects boards and microphones, was also a five-strong band, of which only the drummer was allowed to concentrate on his instrument of choice.

While Tiersen switched between acoustic and electric twelve-string guitar, the multi-talented band filled out the Arcade-Fire-esque thumping of F*** Me (from Dust Lane) and Skyline opener Another Shore, which has the power of Smashing Pumpkins à la Siamese Dream, with subtle harmonies, knob-twiddling, hushed keys, melodic-cum-toy pianos and occasionally smashed cymbals, alongside bass and rhythm guitar.

It is rare treat indeed to see a solo artist put such a generous band together to tour, but Tiersen is a man who believes in the immediacy of music, the importance of dynamics. Together they turned tracks crafted alone in a studio – Palestine, Monuments, Ashes – into new compositions. There is something of the mad composer in Tiersen. Only once, with a loose, experimental jam, were things overcooked.

Those disturbed by the new direction will have found solace in an extended Celtic jig and virtuoso violin solo on which Tiersen took to the stage alone and tossed his head and flicked his fringe as if he were entertaining on a Parisian side-street in the 19th century.

Might finishing with Forgive Me, with its noodling post-punk guitar line played on a mandolin, have been telling? Probably not. Tiersen’s beauty is his stubborn individuality.